A lot of people raise chickens for their eggs and when they stop producing it can be worrisome figuring out why. In this how to we will look at some of the reasons your chickens may have stopped laying eggs and what things you can do to get them producing again. Some things are natural and you can’t control them and others might have to do with their diet or their activity.
Chickens will normally lay an egg about once every 24 hours. For some chickens it might be a little longer but they will find a consistent pattern that you can recognize. For this reason its good to check for eggs in the morning and just before sunset. You can expect about 250 eggs per hen per year. This means that they aren’t always going to be laying eggs.
Molting Of Feathers Will Stop Egg Production
Most chickens will molt their feathers in the fall season. This is where they lose their old feathers and start to grow new ones. You will notice the birds start to look a little scraggly but within a few weeks they will have fresh feathers. During this time egg production will start to decline and eventually they won’t be laying eggs. Hopefully the molting stage is staggered a bit in your flock so you keep getting some eggs through the molting process.
There is really nothing you can do about this but wait them out. There are actually stages of molting and when the tail feathers start to grow in then you know the process is about over.
Depending on the breed and the chickens it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks for this process to complete.
Chickens That Are Stressed Will Stop Laying Eggs
There are a number of reasons that chickens can get stressed. The first is weather conditions and changing seasons. Although chickens will lay eggs year round the colder months are stressful for them. In order to provide better conditions you should consider the enclosure that you are keeping them in. If your area generally sees temperatures at freezing or below then they should be housed in an enclosure that does not have open sides. Wind chill is something that can really cause problems. You might also have to supplement their enclosure with heat lamps so the better the enclosure is built the better the heat lamp will do when you are trying to keep them warm. It will depend on your area because chickens are able to survive in very cold temperatures but they will be stressed by the cold. Warm weather is also a concern so you should make sure that the birds have the ability to get outside and have a good amount of shaded area to be in during the hot times of the day.
Changes to their home can also cause stress. Like everyone when you move it is stressful and if you change the location of your chickens on your property or change their enclosure they could be stressed and stop laying eggs. If you have had good production right up to the time of the move then you can realize that the move has stressed them and maybe you need to inspect what might be different. Do the chickens now come in contact with other animals? Were they able to free range more in their previous location. Lighting at night and trees that might have provided shade. There are many factors when looking at the changes they may be experiencing.
Changes In Diet Can Cause Lower Egg Production
There are a few things that can cause changes in your flock’s diet. First is the food that you feed them and second is the food they might gather on their own. During the summer months they may be able to gather bugs and eat grasses to supplement their diet however just like your garden only produces for a short period of time the same is true for the food that your chicken can gather.
Chickens will need a good diet of protein to be healthy and if they are low on protein it is just like you skipping lunch. They won’t be producing because they are stressed but you may not notice a problem until they have lost a significant amount of weight.
There are many different types of Chicken Feed from starter feed for baby chickens to special feed for meat chickens and feed for egg layers. Although they are all pretty much the same they will have different levels of protein and minerals.
The minimum level of Protein should be 16% but the can benefit from higher levels up to 20% in their general feed. You might also need to supplement their main feed with meal worms or other products to increase their protein intake.
They also need about 4% calcium and oyster shells are a good choice if your bagged feed does not provide this level of calcium. Calcium will provide better egg shells so if you notice that your shells are not the same then increase the calcium levels.
Each hen should be given at least a half a cup of feed per day. This can be a problem if some of the birds are hogging the feed so make sure that when feeding time comes the food is distributed so that all of the birds can easily get to it and not have to fight for it.
If you overfeed your birds this won’t be a problem because they will stop eating when they are full.
Final Note
There are many factors that can cause your birds to stop laying eggs but most of them come down to 3 different things.
Are your birds molting or stressed or not getting enough to eat.
Other than that there are other things that you might want to talk with a veterinarian about such as understanding the egg production levels of your specific birds. Some types of chickens lay less frequently than others.
Also when chickens get older they will stop producing eggs.
And although a Rooster is not required for hens to lay eggs they are often good support animals for the hens even if you aren’t trying to get eggs that are fertilized for chick production. They can often lead the flock and alert for danger resulting in less stress overall.